It’s midnight in Mo’orea.

I sat outside tonight in the South Seas darkness, looking for unfamiliar stars, but found few due to the sea cloud cover.

The nights are quiet and dark here, unlike nights at home. At first, the darkness was a bit overwhelming. Small spots of illumination come from Hale (house) lights, scattered throughout the steep valleys. With so little light, my eyes stepped back and my ears paid more attention.

The sounds I hear are rich and complex. The gentle breeze flowing through the palm trees sounds like pattering of rain. The young French women singing rowdy songs from a few houses away provide an occasional and joyous melody. The ocean is ever-present, not next to me, but in the distance, and I hear the constant rolling of the surf, lulling me like a soft strokes on a cymbal. The tree frogs create sounds that add constant, high-pitched tones. With all these sounds, it’s still quiet enough that I can hear a clock ticking, keeping perfect rhythm for my natural, dark Exotica.

At first, I couldn’t appreciate the darkness or the sounds. Apparently, the homeowner for our residence loves twinkling lights, and when the sunset faded, a strand of solar-powered lights, strung across the deck railing like holiday decorations, started blinking furiously. It seemed odd to me that one might want to induce seizures in paradise, so rather than resign myself to distraction, I decided that my first mission was to silence these forbidden intruders. After a moment of being tempted to simply pull the wires out of the junction in an act of rebellion, I found the off button.

And suddenly, the darkness was rich and sensual, like velvet. I was listening to paradise.